


party

by ghostscribe



Series: ReGuri Week 2020 [6]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Christmas Party, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, i posted this on the wrong day screams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostscribe/pseuds/ghostscribe
Summary: Red is not a party. Red is more of a date.
Relationships: Ookido Green | Blue Oak/Red
Series: ReGuri Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931590
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	party

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of drabbles for this year's ReGuri week! The prompts can be found [here](https://reguridiscordserver.tumblr.com/post/627435884456919040/the-reguri-week-2020-prompts-have-been-chosen) if you're interested.  
> 

Green hates parties.

There’s always so much going on, so much noise, so much stimuli, and honest to god, he always thought he would’ve been the kind to like this sort of energy. He’s drawn to the spotlight, often has been, it hasn’t always been _intentional_ that he’s the center of attention but rarely is it unwelcome. 

It was very much unwelcome, though, at Red’s “coronation.”

Green doesn’t really know what else to call the party they threw for Red when he became Champion. He doesn't feel like _celebration_ is really the right term, Red didn’t want to be there and neither did Green, even though they were both _highly urged_ to show up; in Lance’s words, back then, it more meant _this isn’t a choice, this is an order,_ and so the evening went on with Green refusing to talk to anyone for fear he’d break down crying over his loss, with Red hiding in the bathroom, probably rocking and covering his ears. Red hates being around that much noise. 

Green wonders if he’d do the same if he were here tonight.

He’s almost positive that’s the way it’d go. The music is loud enough to give him a headache and the faint smell of booze under the gaudy pine-scented candles and cookies - it’s too much for his head. He would bolt if he weren’t standing two feet away from Lance, because he’s kinda tired of hearing the classic _you need to stop wandering off, get your priorities in order._

Lance insisted this would be good for him, good to get out of his gym, off his laptop, away from battles and research. It doesn’t make him feel any better, though.

“How are you holding up over there?” Lance asks a bit below the music, and the words - they fail to reach Green right away, they kinda stew in his head and murmur over themselves before he understands. 

“Eh.”

“That’s not quite an answer.”

Again, Green lags. His mind has been either elsewhere or just empty tonight, one or the other. “Wanna go home.”

Lance doesn’t _say_ he’s disappointed but he has that look in his eyes. It’s not quite the same irate disappointment as when Green leaves his gym unattended for three days straight, no, it’s a bit gentler, perhaps even worried. Green sees his thoughts on his face so clearly when words fail to hold any meaning. He’s been less fond of the limelight as he’s gotten older, and subsequently, he’s been less chatty, less _obnoxious,_ he only speaks and only listens when it’s necessary but so often it just _isn’t_ necessary. It’s easier to just read the unspoken atmosphere anymore. Words are unnecessary.

...god he misses Red so fucking much.

And it sucks, it’s _awful,_ Mt Silver is _right there,_ these fucking parties are always at the Indigo League and whenever he looks out the window - it happens every year, he looks off into the distance and sees that mountain, so close but so so far away, up and up and he’s so far down, it could be - it _is_ close, it’s close enough to touch and yet he never chases the urge successfully. He’d slunk away one year, grabbed his coat out of the office turned closet for the evening, he honest to god tried to just sneak out the window but Lance had been outside for a breath of fresh air and saw him hop down off a shallow eave of the roof and asked _what the hell do you think you’re doing?_

 _Goin’ home,_ Green had lied, and Lance had said, _I’d better see you heading east, then._

East, toward Viridian City. West, toward Mt Silver.

Green obliged only because he knew Lance would’ve read him the riot act if he didn’t, and he’s only 80% sure Lance wouldn’t have had Dragonite knock him and Charizard out of the sky.

Charizard is warm, he’s strong enough to brave the winds on Mt Silver. It’s unfortunate but he never lets Pidgeot out up there, way too cold, too hostile. Somehow fire has become Red’s element, people usually associate him with ice (and that damn mountain) or electric (and that bratty mouse), but Red, above all else, Red is _hot._ He is an inferno in battle and he is a campfire in the dead of night when no one else feels real, sometimes Red says he doesn’t feel like a person anymore but even in admitting that he is still smoldering embers, he clings to life in a way that just - it’s hot, it’s fire, it’s _warm,_ it burns out all other thoughts from Green’s mind.

“Green? Are you in there?”

No. Green’s mind is filled with trees and moss and bees and Red is the wildfire eating everything in his path.

“Eh.”

Lance squints at him a bit, sets his drink down. Sound of glass on granite counter. It’s loud. Kinda makes Green wince. “You don’t look like you want to be here anymore.”

“Y’think?” There’s no bite to the response. He means to sound bitter and angry that Lance does this to him every year but he can’t be. Can’t even really remember much about the holiday parties. Doesn’t matter. Head hurts. Always does.

“...you can head on home, Green. Get some rest.”

Green mishears him over the noise, maybe just over the way his head is pounding, over his pulse in his own ears. He hears _get some Red_ and kinda wants to laugh, kinda wants to cry.

Kinda wants to do it.

Green wanders away from Lance, winds through the maze of the League until he finds the room with the infamous Pile Of Coats. He told Red about it one year and Red had kinda laughed and said it’d be nice to curl up in the pile like a nest. Green said he’d considered cuddling up in it for a nap and Red had said - he said - 

_You can come up here if you wanna cuddle._

Probably just to be facetious, just to mess with him. Green blushed and told him to shut up and Red smirked and he won in the way that he always does. 

Green doesn’t head out the back door straight away, no. He heads back to the kitchen, waits for it to empty out, grabs a few handfuls of snacks. Steals a couple of candy canes off one of the garlands lining the windows. Debates going home, picking a present out on short notice, then decides no, he has another present in mind.

“Let’s go, Charizard.”

_“Zaarrd?”_

“You know where.” 

Words are unnecessary. He misses Red so goddamn much.

The wind bites at Green’s skin as he flies against the wind, toward the mountain. Whenever there’s a blizzard forming on the mountain there’s about a 70% chance it’ll come toward Kanto, they’re on the leeway side of the mountain and they get all the storms while Johto gets off easy. Even now, it’s beginning to snow. Probably already snowing pretty bad on Mt Silver.

Green doesn’t think he’d mind getting snowed in with Red. He misses him more than anything in the world. Needs to be with him. 

Red is very much the antithesis of a party, Green realizes, he’s quiet and he’s not so shallow and not so talkative. Parties start and end but it’s hard to tell when Red is there and it’s hard to tell when he’s gone (not for Green though, no, Green noticed when Red left). Parties are heard but cannot be listened to, and yet Red - difficult to hear when he does speak and even more difficult to tune him out, when he is heard Green _listens_ to him. He’s less the chaotic background noise and more a handful of notes played in unison, a chord below the chorus but impossible to ignore.

Red is not a party. Red is more of a date.

God he wants to just suck it up and _I’m in love with you, come home and go out to dinner with me,_ but he knows he’ll get turned down, and so he bites his tongue, but he - he misses Red so much. The least he can do is go see him.

Green’s head is still pounding by the time he reaches the cavern near the summit; not quite the summit, no, Red doesn’t go up there, there’s just no reason to be up there. No reason for Green to be up here tonight either.

Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want parties. He wants Red. 

“Yo, wake up,” because he figures it’s cold enough and late enough that Red must be sleeping, he usually sleeps when it’s snowing this hard. “You’ve got company and a few handfuls of sugar cookies.”

There’s a quiet hum of acknowledgement from deep under the pile of blankets Green brought up for Red a few years back. They’re worn now but the texture is nice, nostalgic, overused linens but loved all the same. Loved.

Green wants to be loved. No love at parties, not in any meaningful way. They’re overcrowded and there’s too much to say but none of it means anything. Love happens in back rooms but it’s not quite _love,_ just a moment of passion, and that’s fine and good, whatever, but it’s not his style because he’d never bring Red to a party and never have a moment to pull him out of the crowd and into his arms, so he doesn’t need parties. 

He just needs Red.

“You’re early,” Red murmurs, sits up, rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Don’t you usually visit after Christmas?”

“Usually.” Green offers no further explanation. He looks at Red, looks away, struggles to make the decision but senses when he has the chance he’ll slip into autopilot and just - just do it. 

“Mm.” Red shakes his head to get his hair back into place, kinda moves like Pikachu does. “Cookies?”

Green pulls three entire handfuls of cookies out from his pockets, wrapped in tacky napkins, and he just - he’s still kinda dazed and he just drops them into Red’s hands without thinking, and Red giggles and Green is _this fucking close_ to just _exploding_ because _damnit you’re not allowed to be this cute you stupid -_

“Is this my Christmas present?”

“No.”

Green walks over to Red, kneels to his level, all in one motion he cups Red’s chin in his hand and swipes his thumb over his lip and kisses him and kisses him and doesn’t let go until Red lets out a _mmph_ that means _holy shit let me breathe -_

“That’s your present.”

Red usually wins these games but right now his face is his namesake, his eyes are wide and Green can practically hear the gears turning his head, trying to process what just happened and if it happened at all.

Finally, he hides his blushing face under the brim of his hat. No words necessary. The sentiment is understood. _Don’t embarrass me like that._

“...you mad, Red?”

“N-No.”

“Cold?” 

Green is not asking Red if he’s cold. He’s more asking if Red wants to be warmer. _Closer._

“...r-really cold.”

Red is not a party. He’s a date. Intimate and warm and never quite enough to call it a night. Quieter, more present, worth the time and worth the energy. Close enough to touch, close enough to _feel_. Smells less like alcohol and cheap decorations, more like natural pine and mountain air. Tastes less like store-bought cookies and more like sleep. Funny that Green wakes up and has that morning breath and he hates that flavor, but when it’s on Red’s lips it’s his favorite.

Maybe it’s just that Red is his favorite. 

(Some years down the line after Red has abandoned the mountain, Green finally convinces Red to go to the League’s holiday party. Red lasts about twenty minutes in the thick of it before sneaking off to lay down in the Pile Of Coats. Green brings him home to play Mario Kart instead and they call that a date. It’s worth more than a party.)

**Author's Note:**

> look i know this is only tangentally related to the party prompt but listen: any time i've ever been to a party of more than 3 people, i dissociate. no thoughts. head empty. no memory of the events the next day. anxiety brain says No Thinkie. Loud Noise.  
> also i uh. wrote this on no sleep. i'm proofreading it on actual amount of sleep, but yknow what, when you wanna write a character with fatigue or migraines or feeling disconnected from their surroundings, the best time to do it is when you're not all the way here y'know. tired Green has no thoughts, head empty, just Red


End file.
